Women police officers are being issued with headscarves to wear when they visit a mosque.
They are expected to put the scarfs on shortly before they enter the mosque, in keeping with Islamic custom.
I'm no fan of organised religion, but if people are stupid enough to have cultural / religious values that they want respected and I have to enter their property then I guess I have no choice but to respect their regulations. Most Daily Mail commentators fail to grasp that there is a big difference between the social expectations of behaviour that come from living in the UK and expectations that can be made on private property. If I was to enter a Daily Mail reader's house I would have to abide by their rules, as it is, after all, their property that I am entering. Their house rules could be entirely different to general British custom, so according to Mail logic their customs are evil and PC-gone-mad and the implication is that they should become one of us, or leave the country.
The wearing of a small, cheap item of clothing in a very specific place as a small, painless mark of respect seems perfectly reasonable, and hardly a sign that British culture is about to be destroyed, but you wouldn't think that way if you read the Daily Mail:
This is an absolute disgrace!!!
- Tony, uk, 27/7/2009 18:55
Welcome to the loony country of BRITAIN
- nostradamus, SWINDON ENGLAND, 27/7/2009 18:54
.... while we're at it maybe the Lord Chief Justice should replace his wig with a Henry Lloyd baseball cap ....... worn back to front of course ....
- cubone, UK, 27/7/2009 18:42
We are in Britain. Do things the British way.
- Jeff, Norfolk, 27/7/2009 18:42
Spot the pretty blatant racial overtones from 'cubone' (voted nearly 200 in the green), aren't you a real credit to the Daily Mail readership. Some of the comments that have been voted up speak volumes for the intellectual capacity of the average Daily Mail reader:
government is creating too many rules and has become messy.
- Kin, Barnet, 27/7/2009 18:37
Kin, Barnet, manages to get that wonderfully thought-provoking and important comment voted over 1000 in the green. No surprises what comments are attracting huge red votes:
Why not? If muslims get really startled seeing woman without a headscarf entering the mosque, let's not start making problems and wear one. The same thing, for example, is Milan Duomo or Vatican Basilica where you are not allowed to enter in shorts... Don't know, why, though, but basically, it's the same tradition, just for muslims, it's head, for catholics - legs...
- Maris Crane, Guildford villages, 27/7/2009 18:44 607
Surprised they weren't doing this anyway. Personally I think this is right, since it is for entering a place of worship.
- Susan, Edinburgh, UK, 27/7/2009 18:33 1547
Seems quite sensible.
- Don, London, 27/7/2009 18:27 1542
To be fair, this isn't a bad idea it shows respect for the muslim religion whilst showing a symbol of authority for the local police. A correct show of "diversity" in my opinion.
- Nick, Worcester, 27/7/2009 18:23 1494
This must mean that over 600 Daily Mail readers would rather be shot than live in a Britain where the occasional police officer will enter a Mosque wearing a scarf. I just hope those readers have the courage of their convictions and will shortly be willingly executed.
I remember reading a few years ago about one police force which was asking its members to take their shoes off when they entered the houses of muslims if so asked. This received the usual barrage of foaming hatred ("PC gone mad, muslims taking over" etc.). I thought it seemed like a perfectly decent and respectable thing to do. Besides, I can well imagine plenty of non-muslim households asking the same thing (I am thinking of my mum when the new beige carpets were put in) which I hope and would expect the police to comply with in any household.
But there is a difference here. The headscarf is based on a religious idea of modesty, and to many people (myself included) it is sexist that this is a standard applied to women and not to men. Can you imagine if a religion said that black police officers had to wear headscarves but white ones didn't being patronised in this way? It is true that mosques are private property, but there are reasonable and unreasonable expectations of how far police should go in respecting religious customs. My home is private property, so is it OK for me to insist that police officers can all come in as they are except for cute female ones, who have to wear bikinis? Is it really on to say that a female officer could not enter my home if she refused? How far do you indulge private demands?
The assistant chief constable in the article says: "It recognises and respects the cultural and religious practices of our communities." What about religious communities recognising and respecting the equality of women? Is it more important to respect the gender someone was born with beyond their control, or the cultural/religious beliefs that someone subscribes to by their own choice?
Ultimately, I am not sure what the solution is, but if I were a female officer I would certainly not wear a headscarf if I were entering a mosque as I would feel that it validates a sexist judgment of modesty, and I would resent being asked to. I don't know if it is more morally sound to say that female officers should simply not attend to mosques which expect them to wear a headscarf or to say that mosques should be compelled to accept a female officer, headscarf or not.
One other thing, the article (for what it is worth) does not suggest that this has come about through the demand of mosques, so I wonder if the police are catering to a need which didn't need catering in the first place - in other words, if most mosques really give a toss whether female officers wear headscarves or not.